Meet Keith: The Face Behind Photos x Words

I'm twelve newsletters in now, so I thought it was high time I told you a little bit about myself...

As well as being my twelfth newsletter, I hit rather a milestone this week in that over fifty people have now subscribed to receive it regularly. It’s brilliant - I can’t quite believe it. But it’s true!

So first, it’s a big thank you to everyone that has signed up to read what I write and most importantly view the photographs I share. I really am incredibly grateful: you give me the confidence to carry on and hopefully get a bit better at expressing and sharing what I think.

And to start, I thought I’d take this opportunity (before it all gets somewhat academic) to share a little about me so you can get to know me a bit better.

Me

So… I’m Keith. I’m a documentary and art photographer exploring themes of faith, identity and human impact on the landscape. I live and work in Norfolk and I’m lucky to be married to artist wife Debbie (the lovely woman in the second and third pics below). Outside of photography, I love - amongst other things - art, books, nature and the occasional glass of red wine or real ale. I run - very slowly! - and do my best to live out the values of my life-long Christian faith.

Me in various guises over recent years

I grew up in North London and worked for over twenty five years for a number of banks in the City of London during which time I was fortunate enough to travel to many cities in Europe, Scandinavia, Asia, and Australia. Having moved to Norfolk in 2005, and following a period of ill health, I left banking and started taking photographs.

Entirely self-taught, I worked commercially as a family and wedding photographer for over ten years before, in 2022, deciding to focus on commissions in the commercial and charity sectors.

This was fairly quickly followed by another decision to make a big shift in my work towards concentrating on the production of photo essays and long-term self initiated documentary and art projects. These are now my main focus alongside some continuing work for voluntary, charity and social enterprise clients.

In summary, I think of myself as a storytelling photographer with a strong interest in people, their beliefs and how they relate to those around them and to the planet.

Work

It’s very important to me that photographs are printed and made available to viewers in a sustainable, accessible and physical form. So, in the last few years I have been developing the practice of self-publishing my work as time, opportunity and finances permit.

I have recently self-published my first book, Let The Wildness Be Left (2024), a story of how ordinary, everyday human existence has impacted the land, using the route of the A47 in Norfolk as a connecting thread, and I’m a regular and dedicated publisher of zines. To date these include Lockdown Fakenham (2020), a study of a Norfolk market town during the Coronavirus lockdown, Free As A Bird (2021), in cooperation with a local domestic abuse charity and based around the story of a female survivor of domestic abuse, and the first two of an anticipated series of zines focusing on Christian pilgrimage: Marist Day (2023) and Ordinary Devotion (2020, revised 2025). The third zine in the series, and my latest, Filipino Pilgrimage (2025), is presently in production.

These latest zines feed into and will help to form part of my current long term project about the Norfolk pilgrimage village of Walsingham, entitled England’s Nazareth.

From Ordinary Devotion (2020, revised 2025)

I also intermittently publish editions of NotQuiteFree Press. These are one-off photo essays published as newspaper style four page A4 pamphlets.

Photos x Words

This newsletter, Photos x Words, is a new (well, three months old) venture for me. I started it in the hope that my photography will be of interest to some and that those who are interested might want to keep up with what I’m doing.

All the content on Photos x Words is free and always will be free. I just want to share with you my thoughts, images and work, and I hope that you find it stimulating and that you will want to come back for more.

If you’re desperate to show your support (he says, smiling), you can help top up my film fund if you would like to but there is absolutely nothing obligatory about it as I just love having you here! Thank you for your support.